All the elements are in place for a radical Trump power play

If you see a foundation dug and poured, and a large poster with a picture of a building, and a construction crane on site, you might be well advised to consider that someone is building something.

What is being built is a President Trump who is above and beyond the reach of any U.S. law. He has made this as plain as a billboard, and the foundations are all laid. His supporters have been lined up against the legal authority of the United States, based on wanton, cynical, organized propaganda. His supporters believe that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is “unethical,” “desperate,” “partisan” and “a liar.”

The amount of real evidence for any of the charges is essentially zero. That tells you that there is effective propaganda underway and that people have been persuaded by it of something fundamentally untrue. And it just so happens that the untrue thing means Trump is above the law and law enforcement as it exists in the United States. If that isn’t a setup for a raw power play, tell me what one would look like.

Raw personal power is the opposite of law. Conflicted financial dealings are the opposite of ethical government. Nonstop lying and misrepresentation of factual matters is the opposite of an accountable government. A president dedicated to the rule of law would defend itself against accusations, but not at the cost of undermining the legitimacy of the entire federal legal system. An organized media apparatus enabling this is nothing more than a private propaganda wing to encourage anti-democratic motivations.

What is becoming apparent is that the Republican Party does not consider any check on its hold on power to be acceptable or legitimate anymore. Don’t pretend we can’t see the girders being lifted.

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Tom TolesTom Toles is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for The Post and writes the Tom Toles blog. His latest book is "The Madhouse Effect," a book about climate and climate-change denial co-authored with climate scientist Michael Mann. Follow